The trial of the juvenile, who on Saturday was found to be involved in the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi in December, has brought the juvenile justice system in India under the spotlight. The teenager was 17 at the time of his arrest.

Trials of those aged under 18 fall into a special judicial area in India.

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They are handled by Juvenile Justice Boards, or juvenile courts, which are supposed to provide care and guidance to the juvenile offenders during their hearing and detention.

The emphasis of juvenile detention is not supposed to be on punishment but on rehabilitation.

Under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2000 the maximum sentence for a juvenile who has broken the law is three years in a protective home, no matter how serious the crime. There is also provision for bail. The custodial term usually begins from the date of the juvenile board’s final order in a case. But time spent awaiting a decision can be counted toward that term.

The law defines a “juvenile or child’” as a person who has not completed their 18th year of age. In 2000, India raised the juvenile age to 18 as part of its obligation under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which it signed in 1992.

There were calls from some in India to reduce the upper age limit for juveniles from 18 to 16, in light of the Delhi gang-rape case in which a 17-year-old was accused of involvement.

Campaigners for the reduction, including many protestors who thronged the streets in the days following the Dec.16 incident, argued that the maximum three-year sentence would be too lenient to fit the crimes in this case.

However child rights activists said that changing this section of the law in response to a public outcry over a single case, would be a regressive step.

In July, the Supreme Court dismissed eight petitions brought by the public asking them to rule that crimes of rape and murder committed by juveniles should be tried and punished under adult laws and that the upper age limit for juveniles be lowered to 16. The three-judge bench said in its order that “there are, of course, exceptions where a child in the age group of 16 to 18 may have developed criminal propensities, which would make it virtually impossible for him or her to be reintegrated into mainstream society, but such examples are not of such proportions as to warrant any change in thinking.”

But a subsequent petition – currently being considered by the top court– submitted by politician Subramanian Swamy, asks judges to consider the mental and intellectual maturity of the defendant instead of his or her age in cases where a young person is accused of involvement in a particularly serious crime.

The Verma committee also recommended in its report that all juvenile homes be placed under the legal guardianship of the High Court and a panel of judges appointed to carry out spot inspections of the facilities to ensure children there are safe and well.

It said that it was the duty of the state to provide free education up to undergraduate level for all children in conflict with the law.

According to the website of the Delhi Police’s juvenile justice unit, there are 27 shelter homes in the city, including three observation homes — where juveniles are generally kept during proceedings of a case against them. There is one special home run by a non-governmental organization that caters to juveniles of up to 18 years.

Crimes committed by juveniles constituted 1.2% of total crimes reported to police in 2012, according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau data. Juvenile involvement in overall crimes was static at 1% during 2002 to 2005, increasing marginally to 1.2% in 2008 and in 2011 it had come down to 1.1%.

In 2012, police in India charged 27,936 juveniles for alleged involvement in crimes including banditry, murder, rape and rioting, according to NCRB.

Among those who faced Juvenile Justice Boards in 2012, two thirds (66.6%) were aged between 16 and 18 years, according to NCRB data.

The NCRB figures showed that 30.9% were aged between 12 and 16 years old and the remainder, (2.5%,) were aged between 7 and 12 years.

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